CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 300 km round trip from Nerpio - roughly 5 h 34 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cueva del Niño, Cavidad II and back through Cueva del Niño. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Nerpio is the place the road seems to forget. It lies in the far south-west of Albacete province, tucked against the Sierra de Segura and the Murcian border, in a high valley where the headwaters of the Taibilla and other streams gather. It has fewer than two thousand residents and one of the densest clusters of prehistoric rock paintings in Spain, dozens of shelters scattered through the surrounding crags. These are part of the Levantine and schematic traditions, painted in red and black, and covered by the same World Heritage listing as the painted caves of the Levante coast.
Read the complete Prado del Tornero I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Prado del Tornero I is where the day begins. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Niño comes up about 84 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cavidad II.
South of Hellín the land opens into the dry, high steppe of southern Albacete, a country of esparto grass, almond terraces and bare limestone ridges, and it is in these ridges that the small painted cavities of the area hide. Cavidad II is one of them, a modest hollow in the rock with prehistoric pigment on its walls, part of a dense scatter of rock art sites around the Minateda area that archaeologists have studied for more than a century. Like most of the Levantine sites it is fragile and frequently protected by a grille, so it rewards patience and imagination more than a quick photograph.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 150 km into the recorded legs you reach Cavidad II. Next is back through Cueva del Niño.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cueva del Niño, late in the day. Next is Prado del Tornero I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Prado del Tornero I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Prado del Tornero I. That is the ride.
Prado del Tornero I → Cueva del Niño is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → Cavidad II is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad II → back through Cueva del Niño is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva del Niño → Prado del Tornero I is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.